N.C. Division of Water Resources staff received its first report about the algal bloom on Aug. 16, since receiving reports along about eight miles of the river from the Rockyhock community to south of the U.S. 17 bridge in Edenton.

Samples taken Monday confirmed the bloom contains microcystin, a toxin that can harm humans and pets. Concentrations of the toxin could be above the eight parts per billion public health advisory level, a DEQ release warned.

DWR is testing samples to determine the concentrations of microcystin, Laura Oleniacz, a DWR spokeswoman, wrote in an email. Results are expected next week.

Cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, is naturally found in freshwater. But when conditions become hot and dry or excess nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous are discharged, the bacteria can multiply rapidly.

That’s when a harmful algal bloom can develop.

The Chowan River has struggled with blue-green algae blooms in recent years. Last July, a different bloom lasted for about a week in a similar span of the river. Algal blooms are capable of moving with wind and waves, and algae can accumulate in shallow water along river banks.

While no human health effects have been reported from this algal bloom, DEQ’s advice is to keep children and pets away from water that appears blue or green. Algal blooms that contain cyanobacteria typically appear bright green, but the color can change to a milky blue as the bloom starts to decay.

DEQ also recommends:

• Don’t touch large mats of algae.
• Don’t touch or cook any dead fish that might be near the bloom.
• Wash any part of yourself that touches the algae.
• Use clean water to rinse off pets that may come into contact with the algae.
• Immediately seek medical attention if your child appears ill after being in water that contains a bloom.
• Immediately seek veterinary attention if your pet stumbles, staggers or collapses after being in a body of water like a pond, lake or river.

Anyone who wants to report an algal bloom or fish kill can do so by visiting DEQ’s website.

This story was produced with financial support from the Hartfield Foundation and Green South Foundation, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. If you would like to help support local journalism, please consider signing up for a digital subscription, which you can do here.

©2024 The Charlotte Observer. Visit charlotteobserver.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

A pair of binoculars sits in the cupholder, ready just in case he notices a red smudge dotted against the browns and tans of the refuge’s still-working farm fields, everything shaded by a golden sunrise.

“It’s 44 degrees. I think a wolf could just be sitting out in the middle of a field chilling,” said Sutherland, the chief scientist of the nonprofit Wildlands Network.Days before, Sutherland and researchers from N.C. State University had published a paper observing a correlation between the red wolf’s decline, which accelerated around 2015, and increases in many of the animals the wolves hunt. In the peer-reviewed journal Animal Conservation, the scientists said that correlation suggests that even a small population of red wolves, like the one that persists at Alligator River and nearby Pocosin Lakes in northeastern North Carolina, can have a noticeable impact on the broader ecosystem.

“You kind of expect that they’re having an impact on the other species in the area but I think our research really showed that, and it really showed that not having that apex predator in the ecosystem can have a lot of ecological consequences,” said Alexa Murray, an author of the study who was a master’s student at N.C. State University at the time.

___

What the cameras found

Using 25 camera traps, the researchers captured and counted images of various species from 2015 to 2021.

From spring 2018 to spring 2021, as the wolf population declined, researchers found:

• Populations of deer, which red wolves hunt, remained relatively consistent, increasingly slightly.
• Raccoon sightings increased, from about five per 100 days to nearly 20.
• Possum sightings grew significantly, going from about five to more than 30.
• Sightings of potential competition for food like bobcats and black bears increased, slightly for bobcats and significantly for bears.

The study is careful to note that correlation does not equal causation and expresses “regret” that data does not exist from 1987 to 2012, when the red wolf population was expanding.

Roland Kays, the director of the N.C. Museum of Natural Science’s Biodiversity Lab and an author on the study, was surprised by the results, notably the increase in both prey and competition species.

“That they all went up and that it all happened around the same time period was really striking,” Kays said. “It really suggests that this isn’t just some random factor that we happened to pick up on.”

___

Concerns about reintroducing wolves

The study had its roots in 2013 and 2014, when there were still about 100 red wolves in northeastern North Carolina. Landowners were raising concerns that ranged from impacts on livestock to worries that the wolves would wipe out the local deer population.

Sutherland, from the Wildlands Network, thought it was important to capture whether wolves actually were degrading the surrounding ecosystem, particularly the white-tailed deer that are prized by hunters.

“We thought that was a testable hypothesis: Where the wolves were, would there still be other wildlife there or would the wolves have sort of cleaned everything out?” Sutherland said, adding that nobody had really tried to capture the ecological impacts of the red wolf as other researchers had done with the gray wolf in Yellowstone.

What Sutherland and the other researchers didn’t know was that the period they were capturing would coincide with a collapse of the region’s red wolf population, with wolves dying from illegal gunshot injuries, vehicle strikes and, sometimes, natural causes.

Today, there are an estimated 20 to 22 red wolves in the wild, around the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge with a handful in the nearby Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.

A coalition of animal advocacy groups reached a settlement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last year in which the FWS agreed to release red wolves bred into captivity into the wild. That move is intended to bolster a wild population that had dwindled to as few as seven wolves in 2020.

___

Some skepticism of the study

That small population is part of why Mike Phillips, the director of the Turner Endangered Species Fund, expressed skepticism about the conclusiveness of the study’s finding. From 1986 to 1994, Phillips worked as the Red Wolf Recovery Program’s field coordinator in northeastern North Carolina before moving on to work on the gray wolf recovery in Yellowstone National Park.

The impacts of predators, Phillips said, are clearest when the predator is abundant and persistent. That’s difficult in the case of the red wolf, which has been particularly sparse since its population peaked in 2012 and is constantly under threat.

“You’ve got a big study area in Eastern North Carolina, and you’ve got about 20 red wolves scattered here and there. I just don’t know that these correlations mean much,” Phillips, who was not involved in the study, said in an interview.

Doing the same work for about a decade in a period before wolves are reintroduced and then when the red wolf population was larger and more stable could help yield clearer results, Phillips said, pointing to similar research that has been conducted with gray wolf populations in Yellowstone.

One clear advantage both Phillips and Sutherland noted about working in Yellowstone is that it is one of the most studied areas of wildlife in the world, with the park created in 1872. By comparison, Alligator River and Pocosin Lakes became refuges in the 1980s and have been studied much, much less.

“Correlations are important. They can stir our imagination. I am absolutely convinced that predation is an important ecological force and if red wolves were common enough for a long enough period of time, I think they would have ecological effects that would be understandable,” Phillips said.

Capturing what would happen to surrounding wildlife as the wolf population grows would be extremely valuable, agreed Murray, the paper’s lead author.

“Hopefully they can keep the cameras out and then the population will start to increase again and we can have that data and compare it to what was going on when the population crashed,” said Murray, who now works at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

___

Findings about deer and quail

Sutherland is hopeful that the study’s findings can be used to dispel some concerns about the red wolf’s return to the wild.

He pointed to deer, which were detected more than 12,000 times on the team’s cameras. Every camera detected deer at some point, including the ones where wolf sightings were the most common.

That makes sense, Sutherland said, because wolves depend on the deer to live and are more likely to kill what they can eat rather than wiping out the entire population.

“Rather than being cause for alarm, by returning this native carnivore species, the red wolf perhaps helps bring the ecosystem back into balance, but we certainly haven’t caused any huge disruption to the system,” Sutherland said.

He is also interested in continuing to research the wolf’s impact, starting with a bird whose songs he and researchers often heard on early summer mornings when they were checking their cameras.

Bobwhite quail have seen significant declines over much of the country, including in most of North Carolina. But they are thriving in Alligator River and Pocosin Lakes, leading Sutherland to question whether the red wolf’s presence and tendency to prey on raccoons could be protecting the bird.

The quails nest on the ground, often in farm fields like the long rectangles that are preserved at Alligator River. Raccoons and possums often eat the eggs that are tucked into those nests.

Sutherland is exploring whether there’s a link between the seemingly strong quail population in Alligator River and red wolves hunting the quail’s predators.

“There’s no question that the habitat is pretty ideal for quail, but that hasn’t always worked in other places where they’ve done habitat management but don’t have this resident population of large wolves that are out there patrolling 24/7 and making life difficult for raccoons,” Sutherland said.

For his part, Phillips said he is “grateful” that the red wolf’s listing under the Endangered Species Act isn’t tied to the species’ impact on the ecosystem around it.

Instead, Phillips said, “It demands that red wolves be recovered at some basic fundamental level because they have a right to exist because of their own value, independent of what their ecological value might be.”

____

This story was produced with financial support from the Hartfield Foundation and Green South Foundation, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. If you would like to help support local journalism, please consider signing up for a digital subscription, which you can do here.

But some top Republicans say it’s the poultry industry that needs to be protected.

“Right now, agriculture is taking a beating,” said Rep. Jeff McNeely, an Iredell County Republican who co-chairs the House agriculture committee. ” … This is not a great time to go after this industry.”

Those were among the reactions from public officials who’ve read “Big Poultry,” a recent Charlotte Observer/ News & Observer investigation into an industry that has been allowed to grow in North Carolina with little regulation, despite evidence of harm to neighbors and the environment.

A spokesperson for Gov. Roy Cooper said the state needs “effective safeguards and careful consideration of the environmental and community impact of large farms.”

“Our poultry growers play a critical role in feeding America and supporting our strong agricultural economy, but we should prioritize a review of existing rules to see that regulators have the tools necessary to protect the health and well-being of all communities,” Press Secretary Sam Chan said.

Poultry farms, the state’s largest agriculture industry, raise more than 1 billion chickens and turkeys each year. The chickens raised in North Carolina produce about 2.5 billion pounds of manure annually — more than the amount of waste produced by 7.5 million humans, the newspapers’ investigation found.

The manure from those farms can pollute waterways, while the stench and other nuisances from farms disrupt the lives of neighbors.

But N.C. regulators rarely inspect the state’s roughly 4,700 industrial poultry farms. They can’t track where most of the waste goes. In fact, they don’t even know where most of the farms are.

Many other states, including South Carolina and Georgia, disclose more information about poultry farms and have put in place more rules to protect neighbors and the environment.

Should NC put more restrictions on farms?

Harrison, a Guilford County Democrat who is a vice chair of the House environment committee, says it’s time to better regulate the industry — or at least to conduct a study to better understand the scope of the problems.

“But we aren’t doing anything, and that’s appalling to me,” she said. “We’ve really abdicated our responsibility.”

Harrison and other Democrats sponsored legislation in 2021 that would have required poultry farmers to submit their waste management plans electronically each year to the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Resources. The bill wasn’t voted on.

She said she plans to refile that bill “and maybe enhance it with a few more of these considerations you all raised that need to be addressed.”

Chicken and turkey production in North Carolina increased by 33% in the past two decades, with more than half of that growth coming in the past five years.

In some rural counties like Anson, Robeson and Duplin, where many new poultry farms have been built in recent years, neighbors complain about the overwhelming stench that sometimes wafts from the 500-foot-long barns, and about the flies, vultures and truck traffic those barns have brought to their communities.

Some also say they developed respiratory problems after farms were built nearby. Research in Pennsylvania found that those who live near poultry farms have an increased risk of contracting pneumonia.

But Rep. Mark Brody, a Republican who represents parts of Anson and Union counties, says he rarely hears such complaints and sees little need to change the way the industry is regulated.

He acknowledged that the smell from poultry farms can occasionally be strong. “Every now and again, I’ll drive past one and say, ‘My gosh,’ ” he said.

But he said the benefits from such farms outweigh the problems.

“North Carolina is an agricultural state,” he said. “A lot of our income is dependent on agriculture. It’s not reached the point where people are so concerned about agriculture that they want to put a lot of restrictions on it.”

Rep. Robert Reives, the leader of North Carolina House Democrats, said he believes that every player in an industry should be subject to the same rules. The state’s hog farmers need to obtain water quality permits, Reives said, so it’s worth considering whether to require the same from poultry farmers.

Reives also agreed with the statement from Cooper’s office that a review of existing rules could help lawmakers better understand the industry.

“You need to make sure that you’re doing everything that you can to protect health and wellbeing,” Reives said.

‘We’re better than that’

The newspapers’ investigation showed how North Carolina lawmakers have steadily supported bills that help the poultry and hog industries, while blocking legislation that might hinder them.

A 2013 bill introduced by two House Republicans, for instance, would have allowed North Carolina counties to adopt zoning to govern some large-scale poultry farms, but the bill went nowhere. An identical 2017 effort met the same fate.

Brody, who chairs the House local government committee, expressed little enthusiasm for giving local governments more control over where farms are built.

“If you give locals control over agriculture, sometimes locals will want you to do things they want, as opposed to what the market is demanding,” he said.

Harrison sees it differently.

“I think the zoning piece needs to get fixed,” she said. ” I don’t know if we’ll ever get that fixed because the legislature seems to be going in the exact opposite direction on local government controls and constraints.”

McNeely, whose family runs a Statesville company that makes feed for poultry and livestock, says he wants lawmakers to support an industry that provides jobs, food and income for North Carolinians.

“I will continue to work together with our poultry farmers and poultry industry to help feed a hungry world,” he said in a statement.

In an interview, he said he feels the newspapers’ stories were an “attack” on an industry that is already facing financial and labor challenges.

Many of the industry’s costs have soared in recent years, he said. And avian flu has killed millions of birds.

“I commend the poultry industry for keeping us fed during an unbelievably trying time,” he said.

The newspapers’ investigation showed how the contract poultry farmers who raise birds for multi-billion-dollar poultry companies are often left with massive debts and unreliable income. The companies typically provide no guarantees about the number of chicks they will supply farmers, the health of those birds and the quality of feed they will provide — all things that affect how much farmers are paid.

Harrison said she understands the pressures on farmers. “But this is international, multi-billion-dollar industrial polluters,” she said. “This isn’t your average farm.”

She said she was appalled to read that many other states, including South Carolina and Georgia, were regulating the industry more closely than North Carolina.

“That’s embarrassing,” she said. “We’re better than that as a state.”

——

(Observer database editor Gavin Off contributed to this article.)

——

(c)2022 The Charlotte Observer. Visit charlotteobserver.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.